Chapter 3 - The Envelope Beneath the Roses
I hid the blue envelope inside the linen closet and went straight to Nico. He was standing beside the darkened dining room, his jacket off, his sleeves rolled to the elbows. The tattoos on his forearms were the first things people noticed. That night I noticed the exhaustion beneath his eyes. “Your father gave me something,” I said. “A man outside saw it.” He didn't ask why I'd hidden it. He asked where the man was.
Gabriel checked the security cameras while Nico and I retrieved the envelope. Its paper was old, its edges softened by years. Inside were a handwritten letter from Nico's mother, Elena, and a photocopy of a trust document. Elena had created a protected fund for Rosa's lifelong housing and Antonio's care, with Nico as successor trustee. Another page named an independent attorney, Margaret Hale, as the person who could verify the originals. “My mother planned for the day someone might try to push them out,” Nico said. His voice broke on the word mother.
The letter also mentioned an account called the Bellwether Reserve. I didn't know what that meant, but Nico did. Bellwether was a holding company tied to his family's legitimate shipping business. “Victoria asked me to merge its assets with her father's firm,” he said. “I refused until our accountants finished the review.” He read the letter again. “She wasn't trying to change the staff. She was trying to change who controlled the money.”
Rosa came into the room carrying a blanket she'd meant to take upstairs. When Nico told her about the trust, she sat down hard. “Elena said she'd take care of me,” she whispered. “I thought she meant she loved me.” Nico sat beside her. “She did. Both things can be true.” He told Rosa she could stay in the cottage for life, whether she worked another day or never touched a saucepan again. She cried into his shoulder.
I wanted to disappear and give them privacy, but Nico stopped me. “Sophie, you saw what the others missed.” I shook my head. “I saw a hungry woman.” He considered that. “Maybe that's exactly what I missed.” The words should have comforted me. Instead they made my chest ache, because I knew how easily a powerful man could fail to notice the people who kept his world running.
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Near midnight, Gabriel returned with a still image from the garden camera. Victoria's chauffeur had met a man at Rosa's cottage that afternoon. The man carried a black document case. Gabriel identified him as Daniel Ashford, Victoria's younger brother and the financial director of her father's company. Nico stared at the image. “They were looking for the original trust.”
The cottage lights were off when we reached the garden. Rosa's roses glistened with rain. The back door stood open. Inside, drawers had been pulled out and the little framed photograph of Elena Santoro lay shattered on the floor. Nico crouched to pick up the glass. Under the photograph was a scrap of paper with four words in Elena's handwriting: Ask Margaret about June.
